


il chinotto

by Anonymous



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Period-Typical Homophobia, Rule 63, discussion of Grindledore, especially as of 1940 something is its LGBTQetc vocabulary, one of the many ways in which the wizarding world is and was stuck in the Victorian age, what are tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-04 04:04:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18335813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: "you belong to the gang/and you say you can't break away/but I'm here/with my hands/on my heart" -"O Valencia", The DecemberistsChinotto is a very bitter flavor of Italian soda and such, or the myrtle-leafed orange from which it is derived.This is the bittersweet tangle of Gryffindor and Slytherin puzzling, without entirely acknowledging they are, over hypocrisy wrought by one Albus Dumbledore, and their own relationship.





	il chinotto

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wolf_of_Lilacs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolf_of_Lilacs/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Rue](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17763428) by [Wolf_of_Lilacs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolf_of_Lilacs/pseuds/Wolf_of_Lilacs). 



> (evidently Tamsin is short for Thomasine? anyway...)

"We could..." and then the sentence, the very sentiment, crumbles to dust like the chickpea biscuits Tomasine found in an odd little shop.

But Minerva doesn't notice, merely sips her butterbeer primly. It's an odd choice, Tamsin thinks, although perhaps explained if she's here on the pretext of a baby shower. "I don't--I don't think I quite dare," she says, vaguely.

McGonagall is glamorous, if bookish and Gryffindor and not the sort of person (in perhaps more than one way) Tamsin ought to be ... _interested_ in. 

"I...I would, given dreams and druthers. Probably one of those Boston marriages they talk of." Minerva elaborates, in a low voice. 

"Then do. We shall be—" and then the look Minerva gives Tamsin silences her.

"He is...I used to think of similar persuasion, but he's actually what they used to call an invert."

"I--" _don't see what you mean_ Tamsin wishes she dared say, more in the interest of provoking examination than because it was true, but then it's not as if they can afford to be especially unconventional.

Minerva glances about, then uses a silencing charm. "He. loved. Grindelwald," she hisses, "Or so he says."

"And that is a problem for you...?" Tamsin prompts, hoping she will elaborate.

"To my way of thinking," and she surveyed the bar as if to make certain the charm was still working, "It isn't half wrong, indeed it's natural to do the fun bits. It's when you try giving your heart to a murderer—and worse— there's a problem" she gave her a pointed look.

Tamsin raised an eyebrow and endeavoured to look innocent. It wasn't as if she wasn't already planning on trading in the remaining worthless lives of the Riddles and shabby, shameful remnants of the Gaunts, for a better chance at immortality. But, all the same, genocide looked from here like far, far too much. 

"And, if you believe Aberforth, which I do, they dueled and—"

"When did you start trusting Aberforth Dumbledore?" Tamsin asked, even though she found him much preferable and trusted his word almost as much as she ever trusted anyone. "Over a firewhiskey?"

"Ye-es," Minerva's eyes narrowed, "after the aforementioned bombshell came out."

"The man claimed in a potions journal, in which he is no authority, that children conceived with the aid of love potions are incapable of love. I hardly think he has a decent understanding of love." While saying all that, Tamsin had only recently began to thaw, around people who seemed rather more open to the experience than either Albus Dumbledore or anyone else from her first eleven years. Bastards, Gaunts, and Slytherins were broadly undesirable to a certain sort of person, and Tamsin was all three. 

"Yes, well..." Minerva said airily but also dismissively, all the while looking pointedly at Tamsin's chest, clad in some four layers of cloth currently but which had been completely nude the last time she saw it, in cat form. Unlike Minerva, the Slytherin was not an Animagus, but like Minerva and Minerva otherwise alone, Tamsin had quickly won over the famously difficult twenty pound feline named Lise who served as Minerva's familiar. And without fish or roast, not that Lise had ever proved prone to bribery. Not with potions either (although it could be that Minerva was less certain on that count); perhaps as a familiar Lise had picked up on her mistress's feelings towards Tamsin but for whatever reason the cat had been willing, as few else had, to let the Slytherin approach her at her own speed, without pressure or judgement. She had been rewarded with a swipe of a sandpaper tongue across her fingers and a purring mass of fur in her lap.

"Anyway--," Minerva continued, as if to pull Tamsin from her musings, "they dueled, and Du--Albus's sister got caught in it somehow and _died._ And Aberforth says he can't swear it wasn't Albus that killed her."

Tamsin blinked. So. Albus Dumbledore, quite possibly... well, anyway, complicit in the death of his own sister, had still judged her at eleven, her who had then killed no worse than a mangy dog. People... judge harder those who share their crimes, perhaps. 

"...I don't understand that! I don't understand how you don't intervene." Minerva was saying.

Tamsin bit her lip, and said ruefully, ironically, "When someone 'loves a murderer'?"

"No-oo," Minerva drew the word out "when someone you purport to love is planning murder."

On a slightly more even keel, she retorted "I told you I don't trust his judgement when it comes to love."

"Really? Really? Considering the subtext of...ourselves," Minerva harumphed, rather attractively for all that it didn't make her "pretty", and glared at Tamsin.

"Fine. What I don't trust is his moral compass in the face of a lover who is...not upstanding," Tamsin glanced at a plate of scones which had been left on a neighboring table. "Furthermore, is this meant to be a critique of ...us?"

"...no." Minerva swallowed hard, and for a moment they were silent.

"And," Tamsin added with a sudden impish grin, "How in Merlin's frilly undershirts am I supposed to sit through an interview with the man knowing that? He already doesn't like me."

"I have to work with him some 50 hours a week, and I haven't figured it out, myself." After a moment, Minerva said, "Tomasine--promise me you won't emulate Grindelwald? Even if Albus rejects you, promise me you're not looking for some sort of pureblood enclave..." 

"Strange you'd even trust me that far--" the cutting response is reflexive, and Tamsin (whom Minerva almost never calls by her full name) gulps her tea. "And what would I want with purebloods?" She waggled her eyebrows at Minerva suggestively. 

"I mean--all I am is a convenience to you, I should think. Not that there's much of this silly business of falling in love. I can consider you a dear friend and--" her voice lowers to a titillating whisper, "a _delightful_ lover, but I have no use in thinking you...a soulmate, and all that rot."

"Indeed. On that point we are agreed, even as I continue to find it freakishly bizarre that you should _want_ me. And think of the gossip."

"Oh, really? You certainly were glad of the silencing spell last Tuesday night, calling out 'Minerva' as if a distraught pilgrim to a temple."

"Minerva, Minerva," Tamsin scolded, swallowing hard, "It's indecent of you to press the advantage that you share the name of a goddess when I don't. She unbuttoned the upper closures of her robes, revealing the Mugglish, masculine attire underneath.

"I have a birth--a baby shower to go to! Don't go seducing me in the middle of the day!" Although this would seem to be a joke, given both that Tamsin remains fully clothed and it was relevant to the question of how far she wished to go with the purebloods.

"Me?! Seduce anyone? Why would I do that?"

"For precisely the same reason you were saying my name, Tamsin Marvela." Minerva subtly shifted the neckline of the dress under her _pen_ robes, displaying a hint of cleavage and for all but the subtext lost on Tamsin, who had enjoyed their sapphic acts but generally had no interest sparked by other people's bodies.

"Do you know, if I were a boy I was to be named Tom, such a common name and one the mistress of the orphanage, even if it was her voice, would never have said sounded fae?"

Minerva snorted gently. "I don't understand how, but Albus still thinks that's dreadfully Muggleish. And yet you wouldn't catch him saying a thing about Charles Potter."

"He's surely become inured to the Potters' utterly boring naming methods," Tamsin pronounced dramatically. "Anyway, at fifty hours a week, have you any advice for getting in the man's good side? You give Slughorn a pound of candied pineapple, créme de ananas, et voila he's willing to act as a sounding board on any matter."

"Créme de ananas?" Minerva repeated, "No, I'd say he might like limoncello, but Albus is far too unwilling to suspend judgement, save in that one critical, preposterous case, to be won over with gifts, or even scholarship. Pity he's so well liked, on that count."

"But if I do get Defense?"

Minerva sighed, and drained her butterbeer, "I don't want to give this--" she airily waved between the two of them "--up, and yet...I don't know how it will continue."

The alarm on Tamsin's pocket watch gave a small _ping!_ , meaning it was time to head to the interview.

"I could kiss you, but--" _such a thing isn't, as yet, for public places_ Tamsin filled in. All the same, the new minted Junior Professor McGonagall rested her hand on Tamsin's momentarily.

**Author's Note:**

> could, conceivably, see some continuation. I refuse to promise anything, though.


End file.
